The intersection of climate protection policies and energy security

Abstract

Since the end of the 1990s, international energy experts have stressed the increasing strategic importance of energy supply security as part and within the ‘energy triangle’ with its three major objectives: economic competitiveness, environmental/climate sustainability and energy supply security. In the view of many energy security experts, the biggest challenge is seen in maintaining the balance between the three objectives instead of favouring one at the expense of the other two. The following analysis addresses this ‘puzzle’ of the energy triangle and compares the interrelated energy security–climate change mitigation nexus between the USA and the EU: how both sides manage the contradictions and, more specifically, how do the two transatlantic partners attempt to achieve the needed balance within the energy triangle and its three objectives?